A repair with bite!

My youngest son Euan loves his combat trousers, but they had already taken a hammering by his big brother before they were passed on to him, so it wasn't long before the knee bit the dust. He really wanted to keep them though, so I promised to repair them for him. As a surprise, I turned a boring patch into a biting one!

First of all, I trimmed all the loose threads around the knee where the material had torn (actually I've just noticed that I hadn't actually done that when I took this picture! Let's just pretend I did then).

Next, I cut out the elements of the patch: a black oval shape for the mouth, two rows of sharp teeth, and a small semi-circle for the tongue.

I used felt for my shapes so that I didn't have any seams to deal with; hopefully it will stand up to a bit of wear and tear!

Next, I used dots of fabric glue to assemble all the parts of the patch before sewing it on to the trousers:

Then I attached the patch by machine using white thread. It's a bit of a faff doing it by machine, as I had to do each side separately, but I wanted to make sure it was really firmly attached. After machine sewing, I went round with a bit of black thread to make doubly sure the tongue and the sides of the mouth weren't going to work loose.

Result - one very happy boy!

In other exciting news - I finished my nearly-finished long-term project this afternoon! It's taken me over six months altogether and I am so delighted with it. I will post some pictures of it very soon.

White knuckle ride, knitting style!

At the end of last year, a Norweigan friend of mine commissioned me to make her son a traditional Scandinavian sweater and trousers, for him to wear when playing outside during the winter in sub-zero temperatures. I've always wanted to knit such a garment so I gladly accepted. However it soon dawned on me that I was going to have to steek the the sweater. For those of you unfamiliar with this term, it meant I would have to knit the intricate delicate pattern, then cut it up. Eeek!

However I'm always up for a challenge so I decided to tackle this, together with help from trusty google and youtube for extra tips (what a wonderful resource is the internet!).

For the outfit I used a Norweigan 100% wool washable yarn by Drops called Karisma Superwash, which I bought from Scandanavian Knitting Design. I have used this site a few times and am always impressed by their prices and prompt delivery.

So here is the body of the sweater, all knitted up to the shoulders, but before the steeks are cut. If you look at the edges of the sweater you can just make out the tacking lines I have made for where the steeks are to go.

Next think to do was to sew either side of my tacking lines in order to stop the sweater becoming a heap of threads when it's cut:

Then comes the scary bit:

SCREEEEEEEAAAAAAAAMMMMMMM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Now here's the final sweater - all looks well (phew!)

And the matching trousers:


All winging their way to Norway as I write - I hope they fit well and will keep my friend's little boy cosy and warm this winter.

Having now had a go at steeking, I'm not quite as scared of it now. I love the end result, and knitting in the round instead of back and forth does give a lot more flexibility in terms of the patterns you can knit, plus far less in the way of ends to sew in! I would love to make a steeked kauni blanket at some point. I'll just add it to the enormous list of "Things I will probably never get around to making".